


Ready

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: All Along [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Adoption, Babies, Family, Family Feels, Hospitals, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6192262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new Puckerman and a surprisingly long list of names from children's books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ready

When the phone buzzes, Puck is sure it’s not anything important. He’s _really_ sure it’s not Rabbi Greenberg, because the odds of getting a call about Miriam and the baby less than twelve hours after they finally get the car seat installed seem really low. Plus, Puck’s still trying to get the swing to just _swing_ from front to back. 

“Can you answer that?” Puck asks Finn. 

“Sure,” Finn says, picking up Puck’s phone. “Hello, Puck’s phone. Oh, _hi_ Rabbi Greenberg!”

“Really?” Puck asks the swing, before turning to look at Finn. 

“How long ago?” Finn asks Rabbi Greenberg, giving Puck a thumbs-up and nodding.

“Swing’s going to have to wait, I guess,” Puck says, standing up and walking over to Finn. 

“Okay. Okay, we will,” Finn says. “Okay, thank you for letting us know!”

“She’s here? Or on her way?” Puck asks. 

Finn puts down Puck’s phone. “On her way. Miriam’s mom called Rabbi Greenberg to let him know they got to the hospital about an hour ago. Miriam’s been admitted.”

“So we should head down now or in a little bit?” 

“I guess we should head down,” Finn says. “We can talk to Miriam’s parents when we get there and see if they need anything.”

“One of us should post something misleading about our evening so our moms assume it’s not tonight,” Puck says. 

“‘Turning in early. Such a boring night’,” Finn says. 

“Exactly.” Puck picks up his phone and goes to Facebook. “Maybe I’ll add that I triumphed over assembly. Which, by the way, I totally didn’t.” He types out a quick status update. “Okay, there, and you can like it while we’re on the way.” 

“Anything I should pack up before we go?”

“We should… take extra shirts, probably,” Puck says. “Everything else we can figure out.” 

Finn runs a hand over his face. “Are we _ready_ for this?”

“Probably not, but all of those books say no one’s ever ready, remember?” Puck says over his shoulder as he ducks into the bedroom to grab them each an extra t-shirt. “We’re gonna have a _baby_.” 

“This is nuts. _We_ are nuts,” Finn says. “But yeah, okay, let’s go get a baby!”

Driving to the hospital and heading up to the correct floor are weirdly calm things to do, given the fact that they both know Miriam’s in labor. A nurse first directs them to an otherwise-empty waiting room, and Puck frowns. 

“We can’t meet her out here,” he says to Finn. “Maybe you ask the next nurse. People always fall for your innocent look.” 

“I’m sure they have something set up for this kind of situation, right? I mean, we’re not the only people in the Lima area who adopted a baby,” Finn says. 

“Maybe they can put us in a room next to Miriam’s or something.” 

“Next nurse, I’ll snag and ask,” Finn says. 

“Plus we could be here awhile, I guess. We should probably try to rest.” 

“Do you want me to go look for a nurse?”

Puck looks around. “Maybe, yeah.” 

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” Finn says. He leaves the waiting area and comes back after a few minutes. “They have a room for this, apparently. They just didn’t realize we were the people.”

“I told you, people trust you more,” Puck says. 

“It’s my face. My trustworthy face puts them at ease,” Finn says, holding out his hand for Puck to take to stand. “Come on, it’s at the end of the hall.”

Puck takes Finn’s hand and doesn’t release it as they head down the hall. “Well, I like your face, anyway.” 

Finn leads Puck to a room at the far end of the Labor & Delivery hall. This room doesn’t have an adjustable hospital bed, but instead has a glider rocker and a plush recliner, along with the plastic bassinet-and-warmer set-up from the other rooms the passed. 

“See?” Finn says. “It’s for the already-out babies.”

“And the waiting adults,” Puck says. “We should have packed something else, something to do.” 

“There’s a TV,” Finn says, pointing up at the corner of the room. 

“So we’re set until all the baseball games end for the night,” Puck says as he picks up the remote. “You want recliner or rocker?” 

“Rocker’s fine.”

Puck sits down and finds a baseball game before making the recliner lean back. “I know we said we were fine without regular updates, and we are, but it’s still too bad the hospital doesn’t have a ticker. We could follow all the labors, or something.” 

“Want me to go up to the nurse’s station?” Finn asks. “I can get us a non-regular update.”

“Can’t sit still?” 

“Not really, no,” Finn says. 

“Come squeeze onto the recliner with me,” Puck offers. Finn nods, then transfers to the recliner, squeezing himself in next to and slightly under Puck. Puck hands Finn the remote, putting his head down on Finn’s shoulder. “She’ll love us.” 

“Are we going to love her enough?” Finn asks. “What if we get her and we don’t love her enough?”

“How could we not love her enough? We pretty much loved her from the get-go.” 

“But what if it’s not enough? What if she would be happier with different parents? _Older_ parents?”

“Out of all the ways we might mess up, I don’t think our age is really the thing that’ll do it,” Puck says. “It’ll be enough.” 

“What if she needs girl advice? We don’t know anything about girls!” Finn says. 

“Then we’ll have her talk to our moms, or someone we get to know in Rockford,” Puck says. 

“I just don’t want to mess it up!”

“We’ll probably mess _something_ up, but it won’t be big.” Puck shifts around a little, getting more comfortable. “We’ll be awesome.” 

“What if she likes you better than she likes me?” Finn says. 

“Then we won’t tell you?” Puck jokes. “Why would she like either of us better than the other one?” 

“I don’t know. I like you better than I like me.”

“People always like other people more than they like themselves,” Puck says. “That doesn’t mean she’ll like one of us better than the other.”

“Maybe,” Finn says, sounding dubious. 

“She’s not going to like me better. I promise,” Puck says. 

“I guess we’ll find out,” Finn says. 

Puck shakes his head. “Stop worrying. It’ll be awesome.”

 

Finn blinks his eyes and realizes he’s been asleep, and that Puck is still asleep with his head on Finn’s shoulder. The room is still as quiet as a hospital ever gets. The clock on the wall says Finn slept for about an hour-and-a-half. He wonders if anyone came by the room to update them and left when they saw Finn and Puck sleeping, but figures if the baby had been born, someone would have woken them.

He slowly wiggles out from under Puck, repositioning his head on the recliner. Finn stands and stretches, listening for any footsteps. Hearing none, he quietly opens the door to the room and peeks out into the hallway. It’s empty, so Finn slips out of the room, closing the door behind him, then heads to the nurses’ station. One sleepy-looking nurse sits at the station drinking coffee from an insulated mug.

“Hey,” Finn says to the nurse, giving her his most trustworthy smile. “Can I get an update on how Miriam Cohen is doing? I’m one of the adoptive parents.”

The nurse nods and types something into the computer, then reads the screen for about thirty seconds before looking up. “She’s at eight centimeters as of half an hour ago. Probably not more than four or so hours to go,” the nurse says. 

“Great. The next time somebody checks on her, can you have them ask her parents if any of them need anything?” Finn says. 

“Sure,” the nurse says, typing something else on the computer. “Would you like to be notified when she starts pushing?” 

“Yeah, that would be great, thanks!” Finn says. “And, uh, have a good night?”

“You too,” the nurse says, taking another drink from her mug. 

Finn passes by the vending machines on his way back to the room, so he gets two bottles of pop, some Doritos, and a pack of mints. Puck is still asleep in the recliner when Finn returns. Finn sits in the rocker instead, reaching for the remote and flipping through channels, the volume all the way down. He considers trying to get more sleep, but he feels pretty wired now, so he eats his Doritos and drinks his pop and watches infomercials on mute.

Only one hour has passed, not four, when someone knocks on the door. Puck blinks and straightens, looking at Finn questioningly. The door opens; it’s the same nurse from the nurses’ station.

“She’s begun pushing now,” the nurse says. “The file says that the baby will be brought to you as soon as she’s stable.” 

“Oh, wow, already?” Finn says. “Is there anything we’re supposed to do in here to get ready?”

“One of the baby nurses will come in if the warmer needs to be turned on,” the nurse says. 

“Do we need to wash our hands with special soap or something?” Finn asks. 

“We always encourage hand-washing, of course, but the soap in the bathroom is fine.” 

“They won’t let us infect her,” Puck says quietly, then turns towards the nurse. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah, thank you,” Finn says.

The nurse nods and leaves the room, the door mostly closed behind her. Puck stretches a little and looks at Finn again. “She’s almost here!” 

“Did you get some good sleep, at least?” Finn asks. “It might be the last time you sleep for a while.”

“I didn’t have to be aware of how long we were waiting, anyway,” Puck says. “You think we should turn the warmer on anyway at some point?” 

“The nurse said they’d do it if she needs it, so probably we should just leave it alone,” Finn says. 

“The internet said pushing can take one to two hours, so we should wash our hands and everything in an hour?” Puck says. 

“Maybe,” Finn says, “but the nurse told me it would be about four hours until Miriam was ready to push, and that was only about an hour ago. We might want to wash our hands now just in case it goes fast, too.”

“How fast she’s born doesn’t predict anything, right?” Puck stands up slowly. “She’s not going to start walking at seven months?” 

“I don’t think it says anything about the baby. Might just mean Miriam’s, I don’t know, really efficient or something.”

“That’s something, then,” Puck says wryly, walking into the bathroom and turning on the water. After a couple of minutes, he comes back out and nods. “Your turn.” 

Finn goes into the bathroom and washes his hands really well with the antibacterial soap in the wall dispenser, then comes back out. “Okay. I’m ready, too.”

“Ready as we’re going to be, anyway.” Puck sits down on the edge of the now-upright recliner. “Now what? Twenty Questions?” 

“Just don’t touch anything. Your hands will get germy again!”

“That’s why I figured Twenty Questions. Or I Spy,” Puck says. “Can’t even do the crossword puzzle. If they had a newspaper.” 

“Okay. Twenty Questions is good,” Finn says. “You want to guess first?”

“Is it a thing?” 

“Yes.”

“Is it a rock?” Puck asks.

Finn scrunches up his face at Puck. “No.”

“Is it soft?” 

“Yes.”

“Is it food?” 

“Yes.”

Puck nods a little. “Breakfast food?” 

“Yep,” Finn says. 

“Bacon egg and cheese biscuit?” 

“Dammit, that was fast!” Finn says. “Also, now I’m hungry.”

“It’s like I know you,” Puck says. “Okay, your turn.” 

“Is it a thing?”

“Yeah.” 

“Is it food?” Finn asks. 

“Nope,” Puck says with a shake of his head. 

“Is it something you can hold?”

“Sort of? You can hold a copy of it.” 

“Is it something you can hear?”

“Yeah.” 

“Something you can see?”

“Yeah.” 

“Is it a TV show?” Finn guesses. Puck shakes his head. “Movie?”

“Yep.” 

“Something we saw recently?”

“No.” 

“Is it about something to do with us?”

Puck thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Yeah, kinda.” 

“Babies?” Puck shakes his head. “This is hard, Puck! Give me a hint,” Finn says.

“I had to make it hard so it would take longer than two minutes!” 

“Is it about our jobs?”

“Sort of?” 

“Okay,” Finn says. “It’s something to do with us, but not babies or jobs. Is it about where we live?”

“Yes.” 

Finn grins. “I’ve got it. It’s about Rockford, right, not Lima?”

“Yep. So what is it?” Puck asks, returning Finn’s grin. 

“ _A League of Their Own_ ,” Finn says.

“Exactly,” Puck says. 

“How much time did we kill?” Finn asks.

“Between the handwashing and Twenty Questions?” Puck asks. “Fifteen, twenty minutes.” 

“Okay,” Finn says. He thinks for a moment. “I’ve got one.”

“Is it a person?” 

“Nope.”

“Place?”

“Nope.”

“Idea?” Puck asks with a grin. 

“You could have an idea about it, but it’s not an idea,” Finn says.

“Is it fluffy?” 

“Yeah.”

“Is it a puppy?” 

“Nope,” Finn says.

“Dammit. Okay, is it a—” Puck stops when there’s a knock on the door. “A baby?” he adds in a whisper. 

“I guess it was,” Finn says.

The door opens more, and a nurse walks in. “Ready?” she asks brightly. 

“Too late to back out now, huh?” Finn says to Puck.

“I guess so,” Puck says, and it’s not clear if he means the answer for Finn, the nurse, or both of them. The nurse takes it as an answer, though, stepping back into the hallway for a brief moment and then wheeling in a bassinet. 

“Oh my god,” Finn whispers. “That’s the baby. That’s our baby, Puck.”

“Man, she’s tiny,” Puck says. “Really tiny.” 

“She’s seven pounds seven ounces,” the nurse says. “Average size for a newborn baby girl.” 

“Can I pick her up?” Finn asks. 

“She’s all yours,” the nurse says with another smile. “We’ll check in on the three of you regularly.” 

“Go on,” Puck says. 

Finn gently scoops the baby out of the plastic bassinet. “Hi, baby,” Finn says to her. The little knit cap covers her hair. She’s both redder and fairer than he’d expected. “I’m one of your dads. I’m the tall dad.” He carries the baby to the glider and sits down with her, tilting her so Puck can see her, too. “That’s your short dad.”

“Shhh, don’t listen to that,” Puck says. “I’m the strong dad.” 

“Yeah, your strong dad,” Finn agrees. “And you’re our daughter. I hope you don’t mind.”

“She looks pretty content with the situation right now,” Puck says. 

“Well she’s new. She doesn’t know any better.”

Puck laughs softly, reaching out and touching her hand. “And we have the chance to make sure she doesn’t even after she’s not new. So what do you want your name to be, baby girl?” 

“Do we just start listing off the names and see if she likes them?” Finn asks. 

“Yeah, if she starts crying on one, we know it’s totally wrong for her.” 

“Okay, we should start with the grandma names first, just to be sure we don’t want to use them.”

“I just don’t think she’s a Theresa or a Carole,” Puck says. 

“I don’t either, but we can say we tried,” Finn says. “Theresa?” He says. The baby doesn’t respond either way. “Carole?” She continues staring up at Finn. “Yeah, those are definite nopes.”

“Good girl,” Puck says softly. “Virginia?” 

“She just doesn’t look like a Virginia. Luna?”

“I don’t think she’s a Luna either. Hermione?” Puck tries. 

“Hmm,” Finn says, moving the baby’s hat to show the thick, curly hair underneath. “Seems a little too on the nose for a little girl with curly hair.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s just _too_ ,” Puck agrees. “C’mon, baby girl. What name do you want?” 

“Matilda?” Finn says, watching the baby’s face. “Madeline? No?”

“Imogene?” Puck pauses. “Harriet?” 

“Now that we’re saying them out loud with her actually here, none of them sound right,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, but we don’t want to name her something like Sarah!” 

“What else is still on the list?”

“Ramona?” Puck says. “Eloise?” 

The baby hiccups. Finn looks up at Puck, eyebrows raised. “She likes it,” he says. “Say it again.”

“Hi, Eloise,” Puck says. The baby turns her head towards Puck’s voice.

“Oh yeah, she likes that one,” Finn says. “Eloise Puckerman.”

“Yeah, hey,” Puck says, smiling at her. “Hey there, Eloise.” 

 

Puck realizes around ten-thirty the next morning, while Eloise is still only a few hours old, that Finn may have been right about sleep. Neither of them have closed their eyes since she was born, even though she’s slept just fine. After they meet with a few people from the hospital about the procedures surrounding adoption and discharge, one of them promises to send in a couple of meals when lunch comes around, and then it’s the three of them alone in the room again. 

“I guess we ought to let our moms know now,” Puck says wryly. 

“I bet they’d bring food,” Finn says. “Food’s good.”

“They do only have a few weeks before we move, I guess.” 

“And anyway, you know they’ll want to take a million pictures, so we should give them some warning.”

“It’s a really good thing we live in the age of digital cameras,” Puck says. “Otherwise, they’d go bankrupt on film and developing.” 

“They’ll go bankrupt on printing them,” Finn says. 

“Maybe they’ll buy digital picture frames instead,” Puck says. “Right, Eloise?” He looks down at her sleeping and then back up at Finn. “I kinda don’t want to share her yet, though.” 

“I know. Maybe we can wait a little longer, until we’re ready to head home?”

“Yeah. And it’s not like we haven’t taken a lot of pictures, right?” 

“Exactly,” Finn says. “We can just stay here and focus on her for now.”

Puck laughs quietly. “I think ‘focus on her’ is probably not just for now.” 

“Focus on her _without_ the Granny Brigade, I mean,” Finn says, smiling down at Eloise. He touches her palm with one finger, and her hand closes around it. 

“Yeah, that’s true.” Puck reaches with his right hand for the back of Finn’s head, pulling him into a brief kiss. “Happy Eloise’s Birthday to us.”


End file.
